Chapter 156 – Killing Old Dog Zong, Comprehending a Heaven-Grade Secret Art! (5k)

Su Xing couldn’t help but sigh as he watched:

“Damn, Old Dog Zong really does have a ridiculous number of trump cards!”

“He even has methods for blood-sacrificing living souls… truly vicious!”

“Fine then, this young master will see just how many trump cards you can pull out today!”

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【After the power of Black Fiend entered his body, Old Dog Zong’s strength surged dramatically, with both his power and speed experiencing tremendous growth.】

【Even Old Dog Zong’s spiritual energy attacks now carried a potent Black Fiend corrosion, continuously eroding your spiritual energy.】

【But your strength came from the combination of absolute physical power, vital energy, and swordsmanship. Body refinement cultivation was your true foundation, so even with your spiritual energy being corroded, you could still fight Old Dog Zong to a standstill.】

【Your swordplay was sharp and fierce, and you carried an aura of fearless abandon, not yielding an inch against Old Dog Zong’s black miasma.】

【After another hundred-plus exchanges, the Black Fiend power on Old Dog Zong’s body finally began to dissipate, and his strength rapidly declined.】

【You seized the upper hand once more, pressing Old Dog Zong relentlessly, his injuries growing ever more severe.】

【But you did not underestimate him, continuing to fight with everything you had, giving Old Dog Zong not the slightest chance of turning the tables.】

【Seeing himself forced into desperate straits yet again, Old Dog Zong gritted his teeth and pulled out several fist-sized black spheres.】

【Old Dog Zong hurled all the spheres at you at once. You reacted quickly and dodged two of them.】

【Boom! A black sphere struck a mountain, producing an explosion like rolling thunder.】

【You glanced over from the corner of your eye and saw rocks tumbling in chaos, the entire mountain peak blown apart.】

【You were secretly alarmed — these black spheres were most likely the precious hidden weapon of the cultivation world, Five Thunder Pellets!】

【Legend had it that Five Thunder Pellets were forged from rare thunder stones. Not only was their destructive power terrifying, they also contained the power of lightning. Once detonated, they could even injure Divine Power realm cultivators!】

【You dodged the incoming Five Thunder Pellets while continuing to pursue Old Dog Zong.】

【Realizing he was no match for you, Old Dog Zong began fighting while retreating.】

【The two of you chased each other for over a hundred li, leaving entire mountain ranges blown beyond recognition by the Five Thunder Pellets.】

【Finally, Old Dog Zong stopped throwing Five Thunder Pellets. You figured he must have exhausted his supply and accelerated your pursuit!】

【But though Old Dog Zong was weaker than you in combat, his life-preserving arts surpassed yours.】

【You saw him executing a mysterious footwork technique — a single step carried him several hundred zhang. It was the divine ability Shrink the Earth to an Inch!】

【With this divine ability enhancing his movement, your speed couldn’t match Old Dog Zong’s, but your endurance far exceeded that of the aged Old Dog Zong.】

【So you gritted your teeth and gave chase, pursuing him for three days and three nights!】

【Over those three days, the two of you covered nearly ten thousand li.】

【Every time you were about to catch up, Old Dog Zong would produce some new trick — secret arts, rare treasures, or even self-detonating magical artifacts to make his escape.】

【You had lost count of how many trump cards you’d forced out of Old Dog Zong, but his storage artifact seemed like a bottomless treasury, always producing some new method to hinder your pursuit.】

Watching this, Su Xing covered his face lightly and sighed:

“Old Dog Zong truly lives up to his reputation as a master runner! Damn, this guy’s survival skills are absolutely absurd!”

“Chased for three days and three nights… I finally understand why even the legendary Luo Shuying couldn’t kill him!”

After a pause, Su Xing’s killing intent solidified, and he murmured:

“But no matter how many trump cards you have, this young master is putting you down this time!”

His gaze returned to the simulation panel.

【You and Old Dog Zong continued your cat-and-mouse chase for a full seven more days.】

【Over those seven days, your spiritual energy had been completely depleted multiple times. Fortunately, your spirit field blessed land had already been upgraded to a grotto-heaven, allowing you to quickly enter your portable spirit field to recover spiritual energy before resuming the chase.】

【Even so, your body and mind were utterly exhausted. But you gritted your teeth and persevered, because you knew Old Dog Zong had to be even more exhausted than you!】

【Over these seven days, Old Dog Zong had consumed countless rare treasures to replenish his stamina and spiritual energy, making you somewhat envious just watching.】

【Every time you were about to run Old Dog Zong to death, he would miraculously tap into some hidden reserve of potential and keep running for another day and night.】

【You even suspected that Old Dog Zong possessed some kind of innate survival physique, perhaps even the ability to achieve breakthroughs in the midst of battle.】

【Of course, that was impossible. With the current Great Severance of heaven and earth, there was no spiritual energy available. No matter how skilled Old Dog Zong was at running or unleashing potential, he could not break through.】

【And so, the pursuit continued for another half month.】

【Finally, you cornered him in a valley surrounded on all sides by cliffs, forcing him into an absolute dead end.】

【Old Dog Zong cut an extremely pathetic figure. After a month of being hunted, his clothes were tattered, his hair was disheveled and his face filthy — he looked worse than a street beggar.】

【A cultivator at the peak of Spirit Transformation, yet he couldn’t even muster enough spiritual energy to fly on the wind.】

【Your condition wasn’t much better either. A cultivator at the perfection of the Divine Power realm, yet so exhausted you didn’t even want to hold your sword anymore.】

【But now, with his spiritual energy depleted and all trump cards spent, Old Dog Zong was ultimately no match for you!】

【Old Dog Zong seemed to foresee his own end. A complex expression appeared in his eyes, and after a bitter laugh, he used his very last wisp of spiritual energy to destroy his own storage artifact.】

【You tried to stop him but were half a step too late, seeing only the shattered storage pouch and Old Dog Zong’s nascent soul attempting to flee.】

【But how could you let Old Dog Zong escape? You immediately activated the Departure Fire Art, severely wounding Old Dog Zong’s nascent soul.】

【Old Dog Zong began begging for mercy. You questioned him about the cultivation world and higher realms.】

【But Old Dog Zong was slippery-tongued, and the information he gave was a mix of truth and lies.】

【Knowing you would never extract anything useful from Old Dog Zong, you decisively killed him on the spot, then examined what remained in the shattered storage artifact.】

【Unfortunately, with the storage artifact destroyed, most of the magical treasures, techniques, and divine abilities within were ruined.】

【Fortunately, the jade slip containing the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art was only half-shattered. From it, you successfully recovered the latter half of the art — the technique for divining the fortune and misfortune of one’s destiny!】

Only then did Su Xing look away from the simulation panel, sighing:

“Old Dog Zong really was a tough one to deal with!”

“Even though he was weaker than me, he was still so skilled at staying alive that I had to chase him for an entire month before finally killing him…”

“These survival skills are exactly what you’d expect from Old Dog Zong — hunted for over a thousand years, yet he managed to cling to life all the way to Spirit Transformation!”

At the same time, Su Xing felt it was a pity that the storage artifact had been destroyed by Old Dog Zong once again.

Old Dog Zong knew death was certain, so naturally he refused to share any useful cultivation world information with Su Xing, and wouldn’t even leave behind a single treasure.

When Su Xing thought about all those treasures and divine abilities that Old Dog Zong had either used up or destroyed, his heart bled!

After a moment of contemplation, Su Xing murmured:

“With my current strength, I can kill Old Dog Zong, but I can’t manage an instant kill!”

“And precisely because of that, Old Dog Zong has time to flee… and even destroy his treasures right before death!”

“If I want to fully obtain the treasures inside Old Dog Zong’s storage artifact… I’ll need to achieve a one-hit kill, not giving him even a moment to react!”

Su Xing sighed and shook his head slightly.

But for a Spirit Transformation stage great cultivator like Old Dog Zong who possessed so many survival tricks, how could an instant kill be easy? Even if Su Xing raised his Qi Refining cultivation to the perfection of Spirit Transformation, he probably still couldn’t manage it…

“Perhaps… after breaking through to the Void Shattering realm, combined with the Earth Sword… I could catch Old Dog Zong off guard and kill him instantly?”

Su Xing pondered this possibility.

He had originally wanted to kill Old Dog Zong and seize his treasures, but discovered this guy was too slippery and didn’t leave him anything good at all.

As things stood, in the short term before achieving a breakthrough in strength, even killing Old Dog Zong might not yield much benefit.

Su Xing thought this over, then finally murmured:

“Still… although the storage artifact was blown apart, the latter half of the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art survived. Perhaps I should study it?”

Su Xing’s heart stirred.

He had long coveted Old Dog Zong’s art of divining one’s own fortune and misfortune.

Last time, the latter half had been destroyed by Old Dog Zong. This time, he couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.

“The Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art… if I combined it with my seek fortune, avoid calamity talent, wouldn’t that be invincible?”

With this thought, Su Xing turned his gaze to the simulation panel.

【You collected Old Dog Zong’s broken magical treasures, then took out the half jade slip recording the technique and entered the spirit field blessed land to recuperate.】

【Over the next month, you activated the great wisdom concealed as folly talent, keeping yourself in the Concealed as Folly state while recuperating.】

【After one month, your injuries were mostly healed, so you took out the jade slip, preparing to study the second half of the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art!】

Su Xing’s heart stirred when he saw this, and he silently recited:

“Activate immersive simulation function, duration 72 hours!”

【Ding, you have successfully activated the immersive simulation function, duration 72 hours, costing 7.2 million energy points, remaining energy 485.43 million points.】

As the simulator’s notification chimed, Su Xing’s vision shifted and transformed.

Then, Su Xing found a somewhat damaged jade slip had appeared in his hand.

He immersed his divine sense into the jade slip and saw lines of text.

“The fortune of a nation cannot be divined without an immortal’s power, and so this old Daoist has poured his life’s work into this second volume—the Human Fortune Chapter!”

“Fortune, timing, destiny… If a person lacks fortune, they will languish in destitution for decades, but should fortune favor them one day, they will soar to greatness… Cultivators contend with heaven and earth for longevity, and karmic burden weighs upon them…”

“Even the mightiest beings, whose lifespans rival heaven itself, must still endure the three calamities, six afflictions, and the five signs of celestial decay…”

“However, those who achieve minor mastery of my Fortune Divination Art will be able to discern a person’s fortune, seek fortune and avoid calamity, and gain insight into the workings of heaven and earth…”

“…”

The text within this jade slip—just the second half of the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art alone—contained a sprawling thirty thousand words.

Moreover, the text was extremely convoluted and difficult to memorize.

Su Xing knew time was limited, so he hurriedly activated the Great Wisdom state enhancement and began committing it to memory by rote.

Soon a day had passed, and Su Xing had already memorized the entire Human Fortune Chapter word for word, without missing a single character.

Seeing that two days of immersive simulation time remained, Su Xing didn’t waste them. Instead, leveraging the comprehension enhancement of the Great Wisdom state, he began to comprehend and understand this Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art.

In the blink of an eye, another two days passed, the immersive simulation ended, and Su Xing returned to the real world.

After returning to reality, Su Xing contemplated the wondrous intricacies of the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art in his mind, marveling inwardly.

“Unbelievable. What kind of dumb luck did Old Dog Zong stumble into to actually obtain such a precious jade slip?”

“This Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art is no ordinary technique… I’m afraid it’s already approaching the level of a dao art!”

Su Xing was amazed. During his time in the Luotian Grand Assembly dungeon, when conversing with Martial Uncle Shennong, he had once heard about Dao Arts.

As a cultivator, one’s arsenal of abilities was ranked in a hierarchy.

An ordinary Qi Refining cultivator’s methods fell into three categories: divine abilities, techniques, and secret arts!

Comparatively speaking, divine abilities were the most precious, and were further divided into greater and lesser divine abilities.

Lesser divine abilities were relatively common, but still not something ordinary cultivators could learn.

For example, Old Dog Zong’s Black Fiend Palm was a lesser divine ability.

As for Su Xing’s Departure Fire Art, if cultivated to perfection, it could barely be considered a greater divine ability.

Techniques were the most common means of attack—even Su Xing’s self-created Spirit Explosion Art could be classified as a technique.

Secret arts, on the other hand, were closely guarded secrets passed down privately, techniques that even required paying a certain price to execute.

Both secret arts and techniques were divided into four grades: Heaven, Earth, Mystic, and Mortal… And above the Heaven grade, there existed a special type of technique known as Dao Arts!

Dao Arts, as the name implied, meant that one’s skill had approached the Dao!

According to Shennong Youtian’s own words, Dao Arts were heaven-bestowed techniques that could not be forced. Only those who were utterly devoted to a particular field and had delved to extraordinary depths in that domain might one day achieve sudden enlightenment and comprehend a dao art!

Those who comprehended Dao Arts might be a common porter in the mountains who walked a hundred li daily without rest, and thus comprehended the dao art of speed.

Or perhaps a chess grandmaster of the mortal world, who played chess their entire life until their skill approached the Dao, and thus had a chance to comprehend a dao art.

Otherwise, even immortals and great powers would find it difficult to comprehend a dao art.

In other words, Dao Arts could emerge from miscellaneous studies—whether singing, playing the zither, chess, calligraphy, painting… or even fortune-telling—all could give rise to their own Dao Arts.

And this Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art was a Heaven-grade secret art that, in the domain of divining fortune and fate, had skill approaching the Dao—an existence bordering on a dao art.

Su Xing sensed the wondrous Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art in his mind and murmured:

“No wonder Old Dog Zong managed to evade an entire sect’s pursuit for over a thousand years… and even in my simulations, I couldn’t kill him no matter how many times I tried!”

“So that’s how it is. With a dao art for seeking fortune and avoiding calamity, why would he ever worry about staying alive?”

Su Xing sighed softly, then continued:

“However, Old Dog Zong has at most cultivated this Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art to minor mastery. If he’d achieved major mastery… I probably wouldn’t have been able to find him at all. He would have sensed it coming long ago and fled without a trace!”

“Heh heh… Too bad for you, Old Dog Zong. Once this young master also learns this secret art, you won’t escape the palm of my hand!”

The corner of Su Xing’s mouth curved upward slightly.

The Human Fortune Chapter of the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art, aside from possessing the ability to seek fortune and avoid calamity and to divine one’s own fortune, also possessed another wondrous ability: shielding heavenly secrets!

Of course, this could only shield one’s own heavenly secrets, making oneself undetectable by divination, fortune arts, and similar methods.

Such a heavenly secret-shielding ability was precisely what could counter Old Dog Zong to death!

“Once this young master learns the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art and breaks through to the Void Shattering realm, I’ll be fully capable of catching Old Dog Zong off guard and killing him in an instant!”

Su Xing could already envision the treasures Old Dog Zong had accumulated over thousands of years beckoning to him.

“The matter of Old Dog Zong can wait a bit longer. Right now, the exploration of this Age of Dharma Decline dungeon has reached its most critical moment!”

Su Xing thought this as his gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【After memorizing the Human Fortune Chapter of the Eight Trigrams Fortune Divination Art, you set out for the Eternal Spring Gate once more.】

【Three days later, you arrived at the Eternal Spring Gate and met its sect master.】

【The sect master was terrified upon seeing you, because he recognized you as one of the two cultivators who had battled above the Eternal Spring Gate several months ago.】

【On that day, your earth-shaking power had already left them stunned.】

【The sect master of the Eternal Spring Gate treated you with great reverence and asked what business brought you to their sect.】

【Seeing how sensible the sect master was, and thinking it might spare you the trouble of resorting to force, you directly stated your purpose.】

【The sect master naturally didn’t dare refuse, and so he summoned the Eternal Spring Gate’s innate-realm martial artist.】

【This innate-realm martial artist of the Eternal Spring Gate had an aged appearance and seemed extremely old, but his cultivation was the strongest among the three innate martial artists.】

【The old man addressed you as “senior” the moment he saw you, and then promptly handed over the jade fragment in his possession.】

【However, he told you that the Eternal Spring Gate’s cultivation method, the Eternal Spring Art, had been lost over a hundred years ago.】

【Your heart stirred as you realized the Eternal Spring Art had been stolen by Old Dog Zong, and this technique was now in your possession.】

【You probed the old man with your divine sense and were surprised to discover that, besides his body-refining cultivation, he was actually an early Core Formation stage cultivator!】

【Although a Core Formation cultivator wasn’t particularly strong, he was the most advanced Qi Refining cultivator you had encountered in this Age of Immortals and Martial Arts.】

【In your estimation, this old man likely knew more about ancient cultivators, ruins, and the jade pendant.】

【So you inquired.】

【The old man was naturally forthcoming, holding nothing back. He seemed to believe you were an ancient cultivator who had awakened from slumber.】

【He told you that a thousand years ago, the Eternal Spring Gate, the Floating Life Gate, and the Mystic Yellow Gate had all been branches of the same lineage. Back then, the Eternal Spring Gate was still called the Myriad Wood Sect!】

【The Myriad Wood Sect was one of the most powerful sects in this world several thousand years ago, and legend had it that tens of thousands of years ago, it had even produced an immortal!】

【But ever since the Great Severance of heaven and earth ten thousand years ago, the spiritual energy of this world gradually dissipated, making cultivation increasingly difficult for Qi Refining cultivators.】

【This meant that over the past ten thousand years, even cultivators at the Spirit Transformation or Void Return stage had become exceedingly rare.】

【Until several thousand years ago, when spiritual energy had nearly vanished entirely, all Qi Refining cultivators above the Nascent Soul stage took a pill called the Yellow Springs Pill, hoping to extend their lifespans.】

【It was precisely because Qi Refining cultivators had entered slumber, and body cultivation was extremely difficult to master, that over the past thousand years the entire continent had shifted from immortal cultivation to martial arts, resulting in a dramatic decline in combat power!】

【Also due to the severing of spiritual energy, fewer and fewer ordinary people were born with spiritual roots, and Qi Refining cultivators had virtually ceased to appear.】

【A thousand years ago, a dramatic falling-out between sect brothers occurred within the Myriad Wood Sect, causing it to split into three, forming the three premier martial sects of today. The three great sects held mutual animosity and had cut off all contact.】

【And in the aftermath of that upheaval, the Myriad Wood Sect’s Heaven-grade cultivation method, the Myriad Wood Scripture, was also split into three, becoming the Eternal Spring Art, the Mystic Yellow Art, and the Floating Life Art…】

When Su Xing saw this, a gleam of light flashed in his eyes.

“A Heaven-grade cultivation method!?”

“Could it be… a Qi Refining cultivation method that can lead one to cultivate all the way to immortality!?”